System and method for providing dynamic recommendations based on interactions in retail stores

ABSTRACT

An end-user device operable in a retail store records a voice conversation held in the retail store. The recording is transmitted to a server for comparing it to recordings of other conversations from a plurality of other retail stores. The server makes a recommendation based on the comparing. Embodiments of the invention are also directed to an analytics system that collects real-time metrics data for various virtual or physical retail stores associated with a plurality of contact centers. The system performs real-time analytics of the collected metrics data for identifying a product or service. The processor modifies, based on the real-time analytics, a prior service or product to be offered by a particular retail store, with the identified service or product. The processor pushes the modified service or product for display on the end-user device use in the particular retail store.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser.No. 62/003,508, filed May 27, 2014, the content of which is incorporatedherein by reference.

This application is also related to “MULTI-TENANT BASED ANALYTICS FORCONTACT CENTERS” and “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR BRIDGING ONLINE CUSTOMEREXPERIENCE”, filed on even date herewith, the contents of both of whichare incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

Contact centers often want to evaluate their performance againstindustry standards and benchmarks. Such benchmark information, however,is generally published as literature and not available on a real-timebasis. It is desirable to have the benchmark information available inreal-time, or substantially in real-time, to allow companies to quicklyunderstand their performance and react based on the information beforethe information becomes stale. For example, customer experience (CX)strategies may be modified in real-time based on what other companiesare doing.

CX strategies are often aimed in achieving certain Key PerformanceIndicators (KPI's) for the company, such as, for example:

-   -   (1) Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)—a measure of the degree to        which the contact center service meets the customer's        expectations.    -   (2) Revenue or Sales Conversions—the amount of sales that        contact centers generate per time unit via direct sale or up        sell/cross sell.    -   (3) Cost—the cost of labor and equipment of operating contact        center per time unit.    -   (4) Retention or Churn Reduction—from all the customers that        want to close their accounts, which portion the contact center        is able to “save”.

These are high-level KPI's that may be the outcome of many factors suchas, for example, staffing and training levels, specifics and frequenciesof sales efforts, routing strategies, contact center policies, and manymore. In a typical contact center, trial and error is generally usedwhere certain factors under the control of the contact is center are setto particular values, and outcome of the KPIs are measured over time.Thus, there is generally no way of knowing how a change in one of thesefactors will affect a KPI without actually going through the change andobserving the outcome. For instance, adding more agents might increaseCSAT (e.g. by reducing wait time and adding more adequate agents toanswer callers), but it is generally not known in advance as to how muchCSAT will increase, and what the optimal set up is. Such determinationscannot generally be made in a quantified fashion with today's methods.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to an end-user deviceoperable in a retail store. The end-user device includes a microphone,processor, and memory. The memory stores instructions that, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the processor to perform the followingactions. The processor invokes the microphone for recording a voiceconversation held in the retail store. The processor transmits therecording to a server over a data communications network. The server isconfigured to receive recordings of other conversations from a pluralityof other retail stores, and perform real-time analysis of the recordingsfor comparing the voice conversation in the retail store against otherconversations in the other retail stores. The processor receives arecommendation from the server based on the comparing.

According to one embodiment, the memory hosts an application invoked bya store representative in the particular retail store for recording thevoice conversation. According to this embodiment, the application isconfigured to display the recommendation from the server.

According to one embodiment, the voice conversation is a coachingsession between a store representative and a store manager, and therecommendation is a modified coaching script.

According to one embodiment, the conversation is between a customer anda store representative, and the recommendation is for a particularproduct or service.

According to one embodiment, the server is configured to correlate therecording of the voice conversation in the retail store, to aninteraction with the customer and an agent of a contact centerassociated with the retail store.

According to one embodiment, the processor receives information on acustomer visiting the retail store, captures interaction data occurringin the retail store, and transmits the interaction data to the serveralong with the information on the customer for storing in an interactiondatabase in correlation with other interactions of the customer. Theother interactions are between the customer and an agent of a contactcenter associated with the retail store.

Embodiments of the present invention are also directed to a multi-tenantanalytics system that includes a data store, a processor coupled to thedata store, and a memory. The memory stores instructions that, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the processor to take the followingactions. The processor collects from a plurality of source devices overa data communication network, real-time metrics data for a plurality ofvirtual or physical retail stores associated with a plurality of contactcenters. The processor stores the collected real-time metrics data inthe data store, and performs real-time analytics of the collectedmetrics data for identifying a product or service. The processormodifies, based on the real-time analytics, a prior service or productto be offered by a particular retail store of the physical retailstores, with the identified service or product. The processor pushes themodified service or product for display on an electronic device at theparticular retail store.

According to one embodiment, the electronic device is configured to hostan application invoked by a store representative in the particularretail store.

According to one embodiment, the real-time metrics data includes atleast one of interactions at the retail stores, customer satisfactiondata, sales data, or retail store workforce data.

According to one embodiment, the real-time metrics data includesinformation on sales of products or services by the plurality of virtualor physical retail stores. The products or services may include upselland cross-sell products or services.

According to one embodiment, the processor dynamically generatesbenchmark data based on the collected real-time metrics data. Theprocessor also determines, for the particular retail store, performanceof the retail store based on the benchmark data, and outputs arecommendation based on the comparison.

According to one embodiment, the recommendation relates to staff forhandling customers by the particular retail store.

According to one embodiment, the recommendation relates to products orservices to be offered by the particular contact center.

According to one embodiment, the real-time metrics data includesinteraction data collected from interactions between a customer and awebsite associated with the particular retail store.

According to one embodiment, the collected interaction data is anonymousand stored without identification of the customer.

According to one embodiment, the particular customer is identified inresponse to the customer visiting a physical store associated with theparticular website. An apparatus at the physical store is configured totransmit one or more identifiers for identifying the customer. Theprocessor receives the one or more identifiers transmitted by theapparatus, and associates the stored interaction data to the customerbased on the one or more identifiers.

According to one embodiment, interaction with the customer in thephysical store is modified based on the associating of the interactiondata to the customer.

According to one embodiment, the apparatus at the physical store iscoupled to a scanner configured to scan the one or more identifiers frommaterial provided by the customer.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a system for enterprise datacollection, analytics, and recommendation according to one embodiment ofthe invention;

FIG. 2 is an exemplary screen shot of a multi-tenant dashboard accordingto one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a more detailed schematic block diagram of a contact centersystem of FIG. 1 according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a conceptual layout diagram of elements invoked for providingdecision support for a contact center according to one embodiment of theinvention;

FIGS. 5A-5B are flow diagrams of a process for collecting and analyzingdata from multiple tenants and providing decision support based on theanalyzed data according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 6 is an exemplary screen shot of a graphical user interface (GUI)provided by the retail application according to one embodiment of theinvention;

FIGS. 7A-7D are screen shots of the GUI displayed in response to a userselection of a coaching option according to one embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 8 is a screen shot of a coaching plan recommended and pushed to astore team leader according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 9A-9B are exemplary screen shots of the GUI displayed by theretail application for replay of recorded conversations according to oneembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 is an exemplary screen shot of a GUI displayed by the retailapplication for recommending an upsell item to a customer based onanalysis performed by the analytics module according to one embodimentof the invention;

FIG. 11 is a screen shot of an identified customer's journey historyaccording to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 12 is a screen shot of a journey dashboard according to oneembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 13 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of a contactcenter system configured to interact with end user devices hosting aretail application according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 14A is a block diagram of a computing device according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 14B is a block diagram of a computing device according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 14C is a block diagram of a computing device according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 14D is a block diagram of a computing device according to anembodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 14E is a block diagram of a network environment including severalcomputing devices according to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In general terms, embodiments of the present invention are directed toan analytics data aggregator and statistical datamart (referred to as CXanalytics hub) configured to collect CX and analytics data from multiplecontact centers and associated (physical or virtual) retail stores(collectively referred to as tenants), and makes specific data elementsavailable to the one or more tenants for their evaluation and use.According to one embodiment, the data is available either through arobust dashboard and/or through API's which may be used by the tenant tomanipulate different decisions that may affect customer experience, suchas, for example, interaction routing, work-force management (WFM)scheduling, cross-sell opportunities, music on hold, escalation options,and/or the like.

According to one embodiment, the dashboard is accessible by anadministrator that monitors and adjusts contact center optional elementsbased on the data elements displayed via the dashboard. According to oneembodiment, a computer-to-computer business rules engine may havepreprogrammed algorithms that also react to the data elements andautomatically adjust or make adjustment recommendations to theadministrator.

View of data via the dashboard may depend on the role assigned to theuser. For example, a tenant may access a limited view of the dashboardto monitor its real-time (or near real time) performance with respect tovarious types of KPIs, such as, for example, average wait time, calllength, escalations, repeat callers, and the like. Various views of thedashboard may also be created to allow tenants to compare differentcontact center statistics based on any criteria, including, for example,industry, company size, social media, weather, financial markets, andthe like.

According to one embodiment, the aggregation of data across multipletenants in real-time allows the analytics hub to generate benchmark datain real-time. The benchmark data may be normalized across different sizeand types of contact centers prior to storage and/or use. The normalizedbenchmark information may be used to compare current contact centerperformance against its peers. Changes to contact center strategies maybe made based on such comparison. Because the benchmark data isaggregated in real-time from different data sources, the data is moreaccurate and relevant to current contact center business than, forexample, benchmark data published at much later time.

According to one embodiment, the analytics hub is configured tocorrelate the aggregated CX data against external events. For example,the analytics hub may be coupled to a server that provides information,for example, on weather and other environmental conditions present whenthe data was aggregated. The data correlation may allow the contactcenter to predict cause and effect. This in turn allows the contactcenter to modify its behavior, such as, for example, interactionrouting, scheduling of agents, and the like. For example, local weatherdata may be consulted to decide the probability that an agent will belate or not show up to work if there is a large storm, given past trendswhen similar weather conditions were encountered. Recommendations can bemade to the contact center systems to adjust routing priorities based onthe calculated probability.

The analytics hub may also be configured for the following:

Real-Time Display of KPI's—display the actual estimate of a contactcenter's KPI.

Performance Status Indicators—For each KPI and for each company,indicate how the current KPI value compares to similar companies interms of size, industry, and other normalization factors. Visualindicators may be used to indicate performance: 1) green to indicateabove average performance; 2) yellow to indicate average performance;and 3) red to indicate below average performance.

Decision Support—provide decision support by simulating the effect ofsetting lower level factors such as staffing and training levels, thespecifics and frequencies of the sales efforts, routing strategies, callcenter policies, and the like, on top-level KPIs, without actuallytrying it. The simulation may be based on current contact center data,other companies' data, time based events, and/or other event data.

Automatic Recommendations—automatically suggest changing factors such asstaffing and training levels, the specifics and frequencies of the salesefforts, routing strategies, call center policies, and the like, inorder to optimize top-level KPIs.

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a system for enterprise dataanalytics and recommendation according to one embodiment of theinvention. The system includes a CX analytics hub server 100 coupled tovarious contact center systems 120 and associated retail store systems122 via data communication links 140, 142. The data communication links140, 142 may be wired and/or wireless links traversing a datacommunication network such as, for example, a local area network,private wide area network, and/or public wide area network such as theInternet.

According to one embodiment, the server 100 is located in a remotecomputing environment such as, for example, a remote cloud computingenvironment. The server may, in addition or in lieu of being hosted inthe remote cloud computing environment, be located in a data centerassociated with one or more tenants. One or more of the infrastructureneeded for providing contact center services for a tenant may also behosted in the remote computing environment. In this case, contact centerservices may be provided from the remote computing environment by acloud service provider on behalf of multiple tenants as a software as aservice (SaaS), over a wide area network. Some of those services mayalso be provided from the tenant's local contact center system 120. Inaddition, the retail stores associated with the contact centers may bephysical stores and/or virtual stores provided, for example, via a website.

Various types of data including company data, promotions or campaign runby the contact center, customer experience data (including sentiment,interaction results, interaction lengths, customer satisfaction, etc.),contact/retail center statistics data (e.g. average handle time,resolution rate, wait time, average hold duration, etc.), sales data,interaction data, tenant workforce data (agent/employee sick days,schedules, etc.), and/or other contact/retail center factors, all ofwhich are collectively referred to as CX data, are provided by thecontact center systems 120 and retail store systems 122 on behalf of thevarious tenants to the hub server 100 over the data communication links140, 142. According to one embodiment, the data is provided to the hubserver 100 in real-time as the data is gathered by each of the contactcenter systems 120 and retail store systems 122. The term real-time asused herein is understood to mean substantially real-time (e.g. withinminutes, seconds, etc. after the data is generated). As one example, aparticular contact center system 120 may be configured to transmit datacompiled, for example, in the past 15 minutes, as their real-time CXdata.

The hub server 100 is configured with one or more modules including, forexample, an analytics module 204 configured to analyze and aggregate thedata into, for example, statistical tables and/or objects (referred toas a CX object) stored in a data storage device. The data storage devicemay take the form of a hard drive or disk array conventional in the art.According to one embodiment, different objects may be created andpublished for different KPIs that drive contact center objectives. Forexample, an object may be created for one or more contact centerstatistics (e.g. average call length, average queue length, escalations,etc.), customer experience and sentiment, business value andclassification, upsell/cross-sell attempts, and the like.

According to one embodiment, each object is defined by one or moreparameters and/or attributes, and associated with methods that may bequeried by a subscribing client to access the aggregate data. Forexample, one method may be invoked to pull statistical data collected bythe object across various tenants. Specific parameters provided to themethod may qualify the statistical data to be pulled, such as, forexample, data relating to particular time periods, particular types ofbusiness, particular contact center sizes, and the like. Another methodmay be invoked by a subscribing client to push data to the object to beaggregated into the statistical data collected by the object. Forexample, occurrence of a sales event may trigger push of sales data toan object related to upsell attempts. Once generated, the objects may beused to display statistical data, generate benchmark values, makerecommendations based on business rules, and the like. Therecommendations may be for improving performance of the contact centerbased on what is learned from other tenants.

According to one example, an object may provide access to an averagewait time calculated across many contact centers for a given type ofcall (inbound, outbound, retail, financial services, etc.) A subscribingclient, such as a dashboard or premise routing device, may query theobject to either provide comparison data or make a programmatic decisionon how to treat a call. For example if the comparison indicates that thecurrent contact center is processing calls at a better rate than theaverage of all contact centers, such data may be depicted via thedashboard. A router server in the contact center system could thenprogrammatically decide how to route the call at that service level.

According to one embodiment, the hub server 100 is coupled to externaldata sources 180 over a communication link 160, which may be similar tocommunication link 140. External data from the external data sources maybe pulled by or pushed to the hub server 100 for correlating CX datawith the external data. The external data may relate, for example, toweather, traffic, research, geopolitical events, socioeconomicinfluences, KLOUT scores, social media information, and the like, notgenerally available or provided by the retail systems 122 or contactcenter systems 120.

According to one embodiment, CX data gathered across various tenants maybe used to detect trends and/or themes across different customer typesand/or external events. In this regard, the analysis module maydetermine that a particular type of CX data and/or external event hashigh or low statistical correlation to certain outcomes. Suchdetermination may be made after observing, either automatically orsemi-automatically, how closely the CX data and/or external event trackswith certain outcomes over time and over various tenants. The analysismodule may make recommendations based on the deduced correlations. Therecommendations may relate to contact center routing, scheduling ofagents, cross-sell/upsell efforts, escalation options, coaching scripts,and/or the like. A feedback loop back to the hub server 100 with actualoutcome data allows the server to learn and improve based on the actualoutcomes from the recommendations.

For example, analysis of statistical data may indicate that a particularcontact center metric is highly correlated to a particular KPI, such as,for example, service level. Recommendations may be made to modify theparticular contact center metric in order to achieve a desired value forthe KPI. In another example, correlations may be found between certainCX data and agent churn. If analyzed data indicates a high probabilitythat an agent may quit, modifications may be recommended to reduce suchprobability, to hire additional staff based on such probability, and/orthe like.

According to one embodiment, the hub server 100 is also coupled to aplurality of end user devices 190 over communication link 121, which maybe similar to communication link 140. The end user devices 190 may bedesktops, laptops, tablets, and/or mobile devices accessible to thevarious tenants to access the CX objects and view specific data elementsauthorized to the tenants. The level of access via the dashboard,including access to sensitive information, may depend on user roles. Forexample, the dashboard may allow display of tenant specificities for theparticular tenant, but the particular tenant may not have access toanother tenant's specific or sensitive data. The particular tenant may,however, view benchmark and general statistics data generated byaggregating and analyzing CX across multiple tenants.

According to one embodiment, a global administrator, such as a hubmanager, may have access to specific data for all tenants for which datais being aggregated.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary screen shot of a multi-tenant dashboard 240according to one embodiment of the invention. According to oneembodiment, the dashboard may be used to provide a real-time display ofvarious performance metrics of one or more contact centers. For example,the analytics module may continuously (e.g. every 1 second) predict anddisplay KPI's, or display when information on changes to input valuesaffecting KPI's materializes. Exemplary KPI's that may be displayedinclude, without limitation, customer satisfaction (CSAT), revenue orsales conversions, cost, customer retention, and the like.

The dashboard may also be used to provide performance status indicationfor the particular tenant. In this regard, for each KPI of the company,a performance indication may be provided based on comparison to othercompanies. In this regard, average values of various KPI's may becalculated from data aggregated from different tenants. The values maybe normalized based on normalization factors, such as, for example,company size, vertical industry, and the like. The current tenant's KPImay then be compared to the average KPI. The comparison may be, forexample, a distance calculation of the tenant's KPI to the average KPI.A color code may then be assigned based on the comparison For example,the tenant's KPI may be highlighted in green to indicate above averageperformance compared to the tenant's peers, highlighted in yellow toindicate average performance, and highlighted in red to indicate belowaverage performance. Other types of visuals are also contemplated.

In the exemplary dashboard 240 of FIG. 2, real-time contact centermetrics for a particular contact center “X” are displayed. In thisexample, the displayed metrics related to number of calls 241, averageduration of each call 242, and the like. Also, a graph 243 of aparticular contact center metric may be displayed for a specifiedcategory trend, agent, and/or topic.

In general terms, the analytics module 204 of the hub server may beconfigured to do the following:

1. Each tenant sends CX data elements on a real or near real time basisto the CX analytics hub. The information could include: call types,length, handle time, location, escalation, customer satisfaction, X-Sellattempts, and the like.

2. CX analytics hub collects, stores and aggregates this informationinto statistical tables and objects.

4. External data (e.g. weather, financial markets, KLOUT Scores, socialmedia information, or any other event data external to the contactcenter system) is retrieved from external data sources and correlatedwith the CX data.

5. The CX analytics hub provides dashboard that are configured to viewthis data, either at the hub level or by each tenant. Policies placerestriction of sensitive information.

6. Hub managers can monitor the dashboard and “push” actions back downto a tenant's contact center system. Push information could causereactions to routing, cross-selling, queue announcements and agentcoaching.

7. API's could allow computer to computer systems to automatically reactto object values or leverage business rules centrally located in thecloud and either managed by the tenant or a hub manager expert.

8. Tenants may invoke their dashboards to query the aggregated data as,for example, indexes in which tenants may compare their own statisticswith sum (or average or some other statistical derivation) of the groupof tenants. The group may be global (e.g. all tenants subscribed withthe CX analytics hub), regional (e.g. those in a particular geographicregion), or based on a vertical industry (e.g. financial, medical,hospitality, etc.).

FIG. 3 is a more detailed schematic block diagram of any one of thecontact center systems 120 of FIG. 1 according to one embodiment of theinvention. The contact center system includes one or more variouscontact center servers such as, for example, a SIP server 12, routingserver 14, statistics server 16, media server 18, interaction server 20,and/or the like. One of more of these servers may be configured toexchange data with the hub server 100 over the communication links 140.Although in the embodiment of FIG. 3 it is assumed that the servers12-20 are hosted locally as a tenant's local contact center system, aperson of skill in the art should recognize that one or more of theserver may also be hosted remotely in a remote computing environment.

According to one embodiment, the servers 12-20 are implemented assoftware components that are deployed in the contact center system 120.Although the various servers are described as separate functional units,a person of skill in the art will recognize that the functionality ofthe various servers may be combined or integrated into a single server,or further subdivided into other separate functional units withoutdeparting from the spirit of the invention.

According to one embodiment, the contact center system 120 also hosts amass storage device 24 which may take form of a hard disk or disk arrayas is conventional in the art. According to one exemplary embodiment ofthe invention, such as when the contact center system is hosted by acentral data center, the mass storage device 24 stores one or moredatabases relating to agent data (e.g. agent profiles, schedules, etc.),customer data (e.g. customer profiles), interaction data (e.g. detailsof each interaction with a customer, including reason for theinteraction, disposition data, time on hold, handle time, etc.), and/orthe like. According to one embodiment, some of the data (e.g. customerprofile data) may come from a customer relations management (CRM)database.

According to one embodiment, customers, potential customers, or otherend users (collectively referred to as customers) desiring to receiveservices from the contact center may initiate inbound contact to thecontact center via their end user devices (not shown). Each of the enduser devices may be a communication device conventional in the art, suchas, for example, a telephone, wireless phone, smart phone, personalcomputer, electronic tablet, and/or the like. Users operating the enduser devices may initiate, manage, and respond to telephone calls,emails, chats, text messaging, web-browsing sessions, and othermulti-media interactions.

Inbound and outbound interactions from and to the end users devices maytraverse a telephone, cellular, and/or data communication networkdepending on the type of device that is being used and the type of mediachannel that is invoked. For example, the communications network mayinclude a private or public switched telephone network (PSTN) 34, thewide area network 11, and/or the like. The communications network mayalso include a wireless carrier network including a code divisionmultiple access (CDMA) network, global system for mobile communications(GSM) network, and/or any 3G or 4G network conventional in the art.

According to one exemplary embodiment, the contact center includes amedia gateway 28 coupled to the PSTN network 34 for receiving andtransmitting telephony calls between end users and the contact center.The media gateway 28 may take the form of an automatic call distributor,a private branch exchange (PBX), an IP-based software switch, and/or anyother switch or gateway configured to receive Internet-sourced callsand/or telephone network-sourced calls. According to one exemplaryembodiment of the invention, the media gateway 28 is coupled to a SIP(Session Initiation Protocol) server 12 which may, for example, serve asan adapter or interface between the media gateway and the remainder ofthe routing, monitoring, and other call-handling components of thecontact center. Although SIP is used as an example protocol to which theserver 12 adheres, a person of skill in the art will understand that anyother protocol other than SIP may be used for processing telephony callsbetween customers and the contact center.

According to one embodiment, interactions other than telephonyinteractions are received by an enterprise server 26 and forwarded tothe interaction server 20 for further handling. The other types ofinteractions may include, for example, email, vmail (voice mail throughemail), chat, video, text-messaging, web, social media, co-browsing, webreal time communication (WebRTC), and the like. In this regard, theenterprise server 26 may take the form of an email server, web server,and/or the like. According to one embodiment video and WebRCTC calls arehandled by the SIP server 12 instead of the interaction server 20. Also,according to one embodiment, a central interaction server 20 handles thevarious non-telephony interactions for the contact center. Multipleinteractions servers may also be deployed in other embodiments. Themultiple interaction servers may allow handling of various non-telephonyinteractions concurrently. The multiple interactions servers may alsoserve as backup servers that are passive during normal operation, butbecome active when the central interaction server is down. The same mayapply for other components of the contact center system, such as, forexample, the routing server 14.

The routing server 14 may be configured to work with the SIP servers 12and/or interaction server 20 for routing interactions to a contactcenter target based on a routing strategy associated with a particularroute point (e.g. a called number). Depending on the type of routingstrategy configured for the route point, different options, voicetreatments, and routing is performed for the interaction.

The media server 18 may be configured to identify parameters (e.g.available media ports on the media server) for establishing voiceconversations between a customer and a contact center target. The mediaserver 18 is also configured to deliver media to customers and/oragents. For example, the media server 18 may be invoked to provideinitial greeting messages to a calling customer, and interactive voiceresponse (IVR) treatment to obtain basic customer information (e.g.identification information, reason for the call, etc.). If the customeror agent is placed on hold, the media server 18 may be invoked to playmusic for the holding customer or agent. In another example, if aconversation between the customer and agent is to be recorded, the callmay traverse the media server so that the customer and agent may engagein a three way conversation with the media server, and the media servermay record the conversation and store the recorded conversation in adatabase.

The statistics server 16 may be configured to gather, store, analyze,and/or deliver data regarding various resources of the contact center.Such data may include data regarding agent availability, averagehandling time, average hold time, total talk time, after work time,average speed of answer, service level statistics, abandonment rate,patience rate, and the like. The delivery of statistics data may be tosubscribing clients, such as, for example, delivery of agent status tothe routing server 14, and real-time statistics to the hub server 100.

The contact center system may include other servers as will beconventional in the art. For example, the contact center system mayinclude a configuration server for configuring the various servers andother aspects of contact center functionality as will be appreciated bya person of skill in the art. The contact center system may also includeone or more reporting servers configured to provide real-time reportingbased on statistics data provided by the statistics server 16.

According to one embodiment, a telephony call is received by the mediagateway 28 and the SIP server 12 is invoked for further handling. TheSIP server 12 invokes the routing server 14 (e.g. by sending an eventmessage) for retrieving a routing strategy for routing the call to anappropriate target. If the call is to be routed to a contact centeragent, the routing server 14 identifies an appropriate agent for routingthe call. The selection of an appropriate agent may be based, forexample, on a routing strategy employed by the routing server 14, andfurther based on information about agent availability, skills, and otherrouting parameters provided, for example, by the statistics server 16.

The routing server 14 signals the SIP server 12 with information on theagent to which the call is to be routed. In this regard, the SIP server12 transmits one or more SIP messages to establish a connection betweenthe customer end device and an agent device 30 a-30 c (collectivelyreferenced as 30). Collected information in the mass storage device 24about the caller and/or the caller's historical information may also beprovided to the agent device for aiding the agent in better servicingthe call. In this regard, each agent device 30 may include a telephoneadapted for regular telephone calls, VoIP calls, and the like. The agentdevice 30 may also include a computer for communicating with one or moreservers of the contact center and performing data processing associatedwith contact center operations, and for interfacing with customers viavoice and other multimedia communication mechanisms.

According to one embodiment, if there are no available agents to handlethe call, the media server 18 may be invoked for playing different typesof media (e.g. music) while the call is put on hold. The media server 18may also be configured to provide messages indicative of how long thecustomer has to wait before an agent becomes available to handle thecall. According to one embodiment, agents at other CC sites may beinvoked to handle the call if there are no available agents at thecurrent CC site.

According to one exemplary embodiment of the invention, the routingserver 14 is enhanced with functionality for managingback-office/offline activities that are assigned to the agents. Suchactivities may include, for example, responding to emails, responding toletters, attending training seminars, or any other activity that doesnot entail real time communication with a customer. Once assigned to anagent, an activity may be pushed to the agent, or may appear in theagent's workbin 32 a-32 c (collectively referenced as 32) as a task tobe completed by the agent. The agent's workbin may be implemented viaany data structure conventional in the art, such as, for example, alinked list, array, and/or the like. The workbin may be maintained, forexample, in buffer memory of each agent device 30.

In the various embodiments, the term interaction is used generally torefer to any real-time and non-real time interaction that uses anycommunication channel including, without limitation telephony calls(PSTN or VoIP calls), emails, vmails (voice mail through email), video,chat, screen-sharing, text messages, social media messages, webreal-time communication (e.g. WebRTC calls), and the like.

Embodiments of the present invention are also directed to providingdecision support to contact centers based on what is learned from dataaggregated from other tenants. In this regard, the analytics module 204in the hub server 100 is configured to simulate/predict the outcome ofone or more KPI's based on modification of one or more contact centerparameters, without actually making those modifications. The predictionmay be based on outcomes learned from other similar contact centertenants who have actually made the modification and provided results asCX data over communication links 140.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual layout diagram of elements invoked for providingdecision support for a contact center according to one embodiment of theinvention. According to one embodiment, the analytics module 204 isconfigured to provide prediction and simulation of top level KPI's 200based on one or more input variables 202 provided to the hub server 100by the various contact center systems 120 and retail systems 122.According to one embodiment, the input variables are based on the CXdata provided by the various tenants, and may include, for example,company data 202 a. Company data may include, for example, salesinformation, customer sentiment, size of company, and/or any othermeasurable data about the company contact center and retail presence.The company data may also include but is not limited to the following:

AHT—Average Handle Time

FCR—First Call Resolution

Cost per Contact—Total of all costs associated with answering a call orhandling a contact divided by the total number of calls or contacts.

Occupancy—Occupancy is the amount of time an agent spends either talkingor in after call work from handling a customer call.

Blocking—Percent of calls offered that are not allowed into the system;generally % receiving busy, but may also include messages and forceddisconnects.

Call Disposition Distribution—The reason for the customer call forinbound calls. This information can be learned from speech analyticsusing conventional speech analytics systems conventional in the art.

Sales Conversion Rate—From the calls that contain sales attempts, whichportion resulted in successful sales.

Supervisor or Escalation Request Percentage—represents the portion ofcalls from the overall call volume that the customer has asked to speakto a supervisor. This information can be learned from performing speechanalytics using conventional speech analytics systems.

The input data provided to the analytics module 204 for prediction mayalso include data of other companies 202 c as well as time-based eventdata 202 b. The data of other companies 202 c may mirror the companydata 202 a. The time-based event data 202 b may include data on specificevents tied to particular time periods, such as, for example, seasonalevents, special events, promotions planned by the company, and the like.The time-based event data may relate to the company or be externalevents not necessary tied to the company, such as, for example weatherdata, financial market data, and the like, provided by the external datasources 180.

The analytics module 204 receives the input data and generates ananalytical model using predictive analytics. According to oneembodiment, the analytical technique that is employed may be aregression technique that establishes a mathematical equation as a modelto represent interactions between the input variables 202 and the KPIs200. An exemplary regression learning technique utilizes classificationand regression trees (CART). More details on CART is provided by Lewis,J. Roger, An Introduction to Classification and Regression Tree (CART)Analysis, Annual Meeting of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine(San Francisco, Calif. 2000), the content of which is incorporatedherein by reference. Of course, any other analytical techniqueconventional in the art may be used in addition or in lieu of CART.

According to one embodiment, a regression decision tree is modeled foreach KPI 200. After a decision tree is learned based on current values,changes may be made to one or more input variables 202 to observe howthe values affect a particular KPI. Such values may be displayed on agraphical user interface, such as, for example, the dashboard describedabove. According to one embodiment, a manager viewing the results of thesimulation may transmit a command, via the end user device, to theappropriate contact center system 120, to effectuate the change.

According to one embodiment, a desired/optimal KPI may also be set bythe manager via the graphical user interface, and the simulation run toidentify various permutations of the input variables 202 that ispredicted to achieve the desired KPI. The various permutations of theinput variables may then be displayed on the graphical user interfacefor selection by the manager as to the particular permutation that isdesired to be implemented.

FIGS. 5A-5B are flow diagrams of a process for collecting and analyzingdata from multiple tenants and providing decision support based on theanalyzed data according to one embodiment of the invention. The processmay be described in terms of a software routine executed by a processorin the hub server 100 based on instructions stored in the server'smemory. The instructions may also be stored in other non-transientcomputer readable media such as, for example, a CD-ROM, flash drive, orthe like. A person of skill in the art should also recognize that theroutine may be executed via hardware, firmware (e.g. via an ASIC), or inany combination of software, firmware, and/or hardware. Furthermore, thesequence of steps of the process is not fixed, but can be altered intoany desired sequence as recognized by a person of skill in the art.

The process starts, and in act 250, the analytics module aggregates CXdata from multiple tenants. In this regard, the analytics module invokesone or more CX objects to monitor for data updates provided by thecontact center systems 120 and retail systems 122 (also referred to assource devices). The source devices may be configured, in one example,to push data updates to objects to which they have subscribed. Forexample, the various systems may have subscribed to an “interactionhandle time”CX object for providing real-time updates on interactionhandling times experienced by the source devices. According to oneembodiment, data provided by the source devices is accompanied bymetadata information identifying, for example, the source of the data.

In act 252, the data that is collected by the CX object is stored in thedata storage device in correlation with the particular tenant providingthe data.

In act 254, the analytics module 204 receives event data from theexternal data sources 180. As a person of skill in the art shouldappreciate, act 254 may occur concurrently with acts 250 and 252. Theevent data may relate to weather, traffic, research, geopoliticalevents, socioeconomic influences, KLOUT scores, social mediainformation, and the like, not generally available or provided by theretail systems 122 nor contact center systems 120.

In act 256, the event data is stored in the data store in correlationwith the CX data collected by one or more objects. For example, the datamay be correlated based on a date and time in which data was collected.Collecting and analyzing such external events allows contact centerperformance to be evaluated in light of those events.

In act 258 a determination is made as to whether the collected data isto be analyzed. In this regard, the analytics module may monitor for auser-command to trigger the analysis. Analysis may also be triggeredautomatically upon detecting a condition (e.g. a preset time, timeinterval, amount of data collected, etc.).

In act 260, the analytics module 204 engages in analysis of dataobtained across multiple tenants, along with any external event dataobtained from the external sources 180, and outputs the results.According to one embodiment, the analytics may include generating orupdating one or more predictive models based on the obtained data. Thepredictive models may be for example, one or more prediction treesdesigned to model a correlation between the types of data that iscollected, and one or more KPIs. The prediction trees may be regressiontrees and/or classification trees as are well understood by a person ofskill in the art.

Enterprise analytics may also include generating real-time benchmarkdata for one or more KPIs based data collected across all subscribingtenants, a segment of those tenants (e.g. segmented based on size,vertical industry, geographic region, etc.), and the like. As anexample, the “interaction handling time” CX object may be configuredwith functions to compute real-time benchmark data relating tointeraction handling times. The computed benchmark value may be, forexample, a sum or an average of all or a portion of the collectedcall/customer handling times from the various tenants, normalized basedon one or more normalization factors, such as, for example, contactcenter size.

The benchmark data may be stored in the data storage device and alsoprovided to one or more contact center systems 120 and/or retail systems122 for evaluation and use. For example, the benchmark data may bedisplayed on the dashboard 240 for a particular tenant along with thetenant's specific performance metrics. A performance indicator may alsobe displayed for alerting a tenant of its performance relative to thebenchmark. For example, the tenant data may be displayed with a firstvisual indication (e.g. a first color) when the tenant's performance iswithin upper and lower limits of the benchmark, and a second visualindication (e.g. a second color) when the tenant's performance is belowthe lower limit of the benchmark.

In some instances, not all data from all tenants may be accessible tothe analytics module 204 for analysis (e.g. to compute the benchmarkdata). For example, it may be desirable to keep certain dataconfidential and not accessible for analysis, due to, for example,regulations that mandate such confidentiality (e.g. PCI, HIPPA, etc.).Also, in scenarios where there is only one direct competitor, a tenantmay not want to disclose its data for analysis as it would expose itsconfidential information to the competitor. For example, if a tenant isa medical bills collection agency with 200 agents, and the tenant hasone direct competitor with exactly the same size that is also subscribedto the analytics hub 100, any benchmark data provided to the tenantwould be the data of the direct competitor, which the competitor maywant to keep confidential.

According to one embodiment, known algorithms may be used to generatebenchmark data even when there is missing data from one or more tenants.Such known algorithms may include, for example, backoff algorithms asdescribed in further detail by Katrin Kirchhoff, et al., “FactoredLanguage Models Tutorial,” University of Washington, Dept. of EE, UWEETechnical Report, UWEETR-2008-0004 (February, 2008), the content ofwhich is incorporated herein by reference. According to one embodiment,the backoff algorithm is used to generate a prediction or estimationwhen there is insufficient data to fully make the prediction orestimation of a high-order conditional probability table. Instead ofattempting to estimate the entire table, a portion of the table isestimated, and the remainder is constructed from a lower-order model.Thus, in the above example where the direct competitor with 200 seatsdoes not want to reveal his CX data, benchmark data may still beprovided to the competing tenant using the backoff algorithm. In thisregard, the backoff algorithm takes into account other information bothfrom contact center with 200 agents in different verticals, as well asother collection agencies from different sizes, to makeup for themissing data from the direct competitor and allow the benchmark data tobe generated.

In act 262, a determination is made as to whether decision supportshould be provided to a particular tenant for helping the tenant decidehow to change contact center performance to reach desired goals.Decision support may be manually invoked by an administrator via thetenant's dashboard 240. For example, the administrator may requestdecision support upon evaluating the tenant's statistics against, forexample, benchmark statistics. According to one embodiment, decisionsupport allows the administrator to simulate changes of particularcontact center factors to examine the outcomes that the changes mightbring. For example, the administrator may change factors such asstaffing schedules, training levels, upsell/cross-sell items and theirfrequencies, routing strategies, other call center policies, and thelike, and watch how such changes affect one or more KPIs.

According to one embodiment, decision support may also be automaticallyinvoked or recommended by the analytics module upon detection of atrigger. The trigger may be, for example, the value of a monitored KPIfalling below a set goal of the company, below a particular benchmarkvalue, and/or the like. The analytics module may alert the tenantadministrator of the detected condition and recommend that changes bemade to one or more contact center factors in response to the detectedcondition. If the tenant administrator indicates that he wantsassistance in determining which factors to change, the analytics modulemay allow the contact center administrator to simulate the effect ofchanges to various contact center factors.

Accordingly, in act 264, the analytics module identifies one or morefactors to be changed during the simulation (e.g. based on user input).

In act 266, the analytics module simulates the outcome of one or moreKPIs based on the identified change. In this regard, changes are made toone or more input variables of one or more prediction trees, and changesto the values of the KPIs associated with the prediction trees areobserved, if any. The output from the prediction tress is thendisplayed, for example, on the tenant's dashboard.

According to one embodiment, instead of the user determining the factorsto be changed during the simulation, the analytics module may beconfigured to recommend which factors should be changed and how, basedon identification of a specific KPI goal for the particular tenant. Thespecific KPI goal may be input, for example, by the administrator, orselected automatically by the analytics module. For example, the desiredKPI may be based on benchmark data provided by the analytics module.

In response to identification of the desired KPI, the analytics modulemay run various permutations of the input variables of the associatedprediction tree to observe which permutations achieve the desired KPIvalue. If there are alternative ways to reach the desired KPI, theanalytics module may be configured to provide the alternative ways foruser consideration and review. For example, if the KPI relates to callresponse time, and the goal is to decrease the call response time by aset amount, running the simulation may indicate that the goal may bereached by increasing the number of agents by X, or shortening theinteraction handle time by Y. Both options/factors may be displayed tothe user for consideration.

In act 268, a determination is made as to whether the recommended and/orsimulated change is to be implemented. If the answer is YES, theanalytics module may interact with one or more contact center and/orretail system modules in act 270 to implement the change. For example,if the factor to be changed relates to scheduling of agents, a commandmay be transmitted by the analytics module to, for example, a workforcemanagement system for the particular tenant for implementing and/orsuggesting the change. In another example, if the factor to be changedis a routing strategy, a command may be transmitted, for example, to therouting server 14 of the tenant's contact center system 120 forimplementing the change. In yet another example, if the factor to bechanged is the frequency of an outbound marketing call, a command may betransmitted, for example, to an outbound server of the contact centersystem 120 for implementing the change.

Retail Application

Embodiments of the present invention are also directed to a retailapplication that is run on an end user device that is used by a storerepresentative at a company's retail store. According to one embodiment,the end user device may be a computer, laptop, table, smart phone, kioskterminal, and/or the like, coupled to the retail store system 120 and incommunication to the hub server 100 and the corresponding contact centersystem 120. According to one embodiment the retail application in theend user device collects and transmits data to the hub server 100 viathe retail store system 120. Data and recommendations made by the hubserver 100 may also be accessible via the retail application. Therecommendations may be, for example, to optimize performance at theretail store. Although a retail store is used as an example, a person ofskill in the art should recognize that the embodiments of the presentinvention apply to other contexts and businesses, such as, for example,hospitals, banks, utility companies and the like.

According to one embodiment, the retail application is configured forone or more of the following:

1) Personalize customer interactions in the store.

2) Provide visibility into retail store traffic and resources.

3) Manage traffic flow into the store using queuing mechanisms.

4) Provide reports and/or data (e.g. to hub server 100) on salesconversions, number of customers redirected to self service, percent ofreduced call volumes to other channels, and trend analysis.

5) Assign customers to sales staff.

6) Manage customer appointments.

7) Record in-store conversations.

8) Provide dynamically modifiable coaching scripts and upsalepossibilities.

9) Provide a bridge to the customer's online journey.

FIG. 6 is an exemplary screen shot of a graphical user interface (GUI)provided by the retail application according to one embodiment of theinvention. The application provides a coaching option 300 for allowing alive recording and analysis of a coaching session between a storerepresentative and a store manager.

FIGS. 7A-7D are screen shots of the GUI displayed in response to a userselection of the coaching option 300 according to one embodiment of theinvention. According to one embodiment, the retail application providesa connection option 304 for allowing the user to initiate a connectionto a contact center server, such as, for example the SIP server 12 inthe company contact center system 120, for initiating the recording. Ofcourse, the SIP server 12 may also be hosted in the remote cloudcomputing environment as discussed above.

In response to the request to make the connection, the SIP servertransmits a request to the retail application for permission to enablethe device's camera and/or microphone, as is depicted via FIG. 7B.Transmitting of an “allow” signal back to the SIP server creates aconnection between the SIP server/media server 18, and the end userdevice. The communication between the store representative and themanager may then be recorded by the media server 18 according toconventional mechanisms. According to one embodiment, the recording isstored in the storage device 24 of the contact center system, cloudstorage device, and/or storage device coupled to the hub server 100. Therecording may also be stored locally on the end user device, andtransmitted to the hub server 100 directly by the end user device.

According to one embodiment, the recording is transmitted to the hubserver 100 as CX data for analysis, including real-time analysis, by theanalytics module 204. For example, the recording may be analyzed fordetermining the quality of coaching. In this regard, the analyticsmodule 204 may include a speech recognition algorithm for recognizingkey words or phrases during the coaching. The speech recognitionalgorithm may utilize phrase recognition as described in U.S. Pat. No.7,487,094, entitled “System and method of call classification withcontext modeling based on composite words,” the content of which isincorporated herein by reference.

According to one embodiment, the analyzed coaching session may becompared against other coaching sessions in the same and/or other retailstores, for making a recommendation in response. For example, therecommendation may be a modified coaching script generated in real-timeand displayed via the retail application. Further coaching and trainingmay also be recommended by the analytics server and pushed for displayon the store representative and/or manager that needs help.

FIG. 8 is a screen shot of a coaching plan recommended and pushed to astore team leader according to one embodiment of the invention.

According to one embodiment, instead of recording a conversation betweena store representative and a manager, the recording may be between thestore representative and a customer visiting the retail store. Suchrecordings are also provided to the analytics module 204 for storage andanalysis. For example, the recording may be analyzed in real-time by theanalytics server for making a recommendation. The analysis may detectbased on particular uttered words of the customer, that the customer isinterested in particular products or services, the customer hasparticular concerns, the customer is unhappy, and/or the like. Inresponse to the analysis, the analytics module may recommend, forexample, a product or service to be offered to the customer (e.g. upondetecting interest in a related product). The recommendation may alsobe, for example, that the interaction in the store be transferred fromthe current store representative to another store representative withskills more suitable to handle a request from the customer. Therecommendation may further be escalation of the interaction to asupervisor. According to one embodiment, the recommendation is displayedto the current store representative via the retail application.

In another example, the recording may be analyzed to link theinteraction at the retail store, with the interaction at the contactcenter. Such linking may be possible, for example, upon performinganalytics of the conversation between the customer and therepresentative where specific agent names, order numbers, interactiondates, and/or the like, are uttered. Of course, the customer may alsoprovide identification of such information to a greeter at the retailstore who manually enters the information via the retail application,scans a code containing the information, and/or the like. The retailapplication may further be used to store interaction results at thestore including, for example, any sales that occurred, survey results,and the like. Such interaction data is transmitted as CX data to the hubserver 100 for aggregation and analysis. The interaction data may alsobe transmitted to the contact center system associated with the retailstore for storing in, for example, an interaction database.

Knowing who the customer who walked into the retail store is, andfurther, identifying relevant interactions at the contact center allowscorrelation of interactions occurring in both the retail store and thecontact center for providing a full view of the customer's experience asthe customer transitions from one medium to another. That is, tracinginteractions and associated customer experience need not end at thecontact center, but may be carried over and correlated to interactionsand associated customer experiences in the retail store, and vice versa,and stored, for example, in the mass data storage device 24 of theassociated contact center system. The combining of CX data provided bythe retail store along with data provided by the contact center allows asingle view of interactions across retail store and contact center forquality control, cause/effect analysis, performance evaluations, and thelike.

The ability to link a conversation occurring in the store with aspecific interaction and agent at the contact center also allowsdifferent types of analysis, including for example, analysis ofrepresentations being made by specific agents, identification of agentsgenerating complaints, and the like. Training items may be recommendedby the analytics module 204 for staff at the contact center and/orretail store in response to such analysis. Real-time analytics ofconversations at the retail store may also allow, for example, real-timecoaching of store representatives, escalation to supervisors, and thelike.

According to one embodiment, the retail application may be configured tocapture information on the customer visiting the retail store, andfurther capture interaction data in the retail store, for transmittingto the hub server 100 and/or mass storage device 24 of the associatedcontact center system 120. According to one embodiment, the interactiondata in the retail store is stored in correlation with otherinteractions of the customer, such as, for example, interactions of thecustomer with contact center agents of the associated contact center.

FIGS. 9A-9B are exemplary screen shots of the GUI displayed by theretail application for replay of recorded conversations according to oneembodiment of the invention. For example, recordings between the storerepresentative and a customer may be replayed by a store manager forcoaching purposes.

According to one embodiment, CX data accumulated from the retail storesalong with data generated by the contact centers across differenttenants is aggregated by the hub server 10. As discussed above, theanalytics module 204 at the hub server generates statistics that areaccessible via one or more CX objects in real time. According to oneembodiment, real-time analytics of the CX data allows recommendations tobe made in real-time to the retail stores via the retail applicationsfor optimizing performance at the retail stores. For example,information collected over various retail stores as to upsell resultsfor various products or services, allows the analytics module todynamically change upsell recommendations for other retail stores. Inaddition, the routing server 14 at the contact center may identify thestore representatives with the most appropriate skills to interact withthe customer and handle the upsell. According to one embodiment, theprediction trees discussed above may be used to simulate how changes ofvarious products or services that are offered together affect KPIs suchas, for example, sales at the retail stores. A task may be routed to theidentified store representative to do the upsell.

FIG. 10 is an exemplary screen shot of a GUI displayed by the retailapplication for recommending an upsell item to a customer based onanalysis performed by the analytics module according to one embodimentof the invention. The upsell script and/or item 350 a-d may bedynamically modified and pushed to the retail application in real time.For example, in response to the analytics module identifying popularupsell items across different retail stores, the analytics module maymodify existing upsell items with the identified popular items fordisplay by the retail application.

Bridging Online Customer Experience

In addition to aggregating CX data from retail stores, data of customerinteractions in other mediums, such as, for example, virtual media, mayalso be aggregated and associated with a particular customer. Thevirtual medium may be, for example, the Internet, and the interaction inthe virtual medium may be, for example, anonymous browsing of acompany's website. The customer may browse the company's website to getinformation on different products and/or services offered by thecompany, without logging on or otherwise identifying himself to thewebsite. Thus, the customer may be anonymous to the website.

According to one embodiment, the anonymous online journey experience isgathered by the server hub 100, and stored in a database such as, forexample, an unstructured database. The data that is stored may be, forexample, all or portion of the user's interactions on the web page. Thedata may be stored as part of CX data, or separately from the CX datauntil, for example, the anonymous online journey is no longer anonymous.Although interactions with a web page is used as an example, a person ofskill in the art should recognize that other interactions in othervirtual mediums may also be monitored, such as, for example, users'interactions with phone applications, smart TVs, and/or the like.

The online interaction data that is collected and stored may depend onrules accessed by the analytics module. For example, not all webbrowsing data may be stored. Instead, significant/trigger events such asa user adding a product into a shopping cart, pop-up ads displayed tothe user on the website, user selecting a pop-up ad, and the like, maybe collected as customer anonymous journey data, and stored in thedatabase in association with a code.

According to one embodiment, the anonymous online journey may beanalyzed for providing, for example, offers to the customer. Forexample, a coupon may be offered to the customer for selecting aparticular link on the website, visiting a particular webpage, making aparticular purchase, and the like. In one specific example, a 50%discount coupon that is to be used at a retail store, may be offered forphone accessories, in response to the customer's online purchase of acertain number of phones. The offered coupon may include the code thatis stored in association with the online journey.

The code may also be provided to the customer according to othermechanisms, such as, for example, a rewards card, bar code (e.g. amatrix barcode also known as QR code), phone number and/or the like. Thecode may be provided to the user on a web page during the web browsingexperience. The code may also be provided via any other communicationmechanism conventional in the art, such as, for example, text message,email, tweet, social media message, and/or printed mail.

According to one embodiment, the code provided to the user is used toretrieve the stored anonymous journey data to bridge the user's virtualexperience with the user's experience in another medium, such as, forexample, an offline retail store, contact center, and/or the like. Forexample, the customer may take the coupon containing the code to thephysical retail store, and redeem it to obtain a discount on productssold at the store. According to one embodiment, the code is captured bythe retail application upon scanning, manual entry, and/or the like.According to one embodiment, the retail application submits theretrieved code to the contact center system 120 and/or hub server 100 toobtain the anonymous journey data stored in association with the code.When such data is retrieved, the customer generating the journey datatransitions from being anonymous to being identified. The retrievedjourney data is displayed by the retail application in relation to atimeline, and may be used by a store representative to dynamically treatthe customer based on context of the customer journey. According to oneembodiment, the journey data may be used to select an appropriate storerepresentative based on an understanding/prediction of needs of thecustomer from the journey data. Communications from the customer to thecontact center may also be routed to an appropriate agent based on thecustomer's journey data.

FIG. 11 is a screen shot of an identified customer's journey historyaccording to one embodiment of the invention. One or more journeys 406stored for the customer is displayed in a journey history area 408. Eachjourney may be identified by a name, time, type of initial media,resolution, time, feedback rating, and/or the like. Selection of aparticular journey 406 in the journey history area 408 causes display ofa journey timeline 400 identifying, in chronological order, relevantevents/interactions 402 taken by the customer across different mediums,including anonymous online interactions. Particular icons 404 may bedisplayed next to the interactions/events to identify the medium inwhich the interaction/event occurred.

According to one embodiment, the identified customer becomes verifiedupon the customer providing personal data about the customer, such as,for example, the customer's name, address, phone number, email address,and/or the like. Information about the verified customer may bedisplayed in a customer information area 410. Such information mayinclude customer profile information retrieved from the contact centersystem 120. Once the customer is verified, the customer's anonymousonline journey may be stored and linked to the customer's profile. Thelinking to the specific customer profile allows the customer's onlinejourney to be linked to other interactions taken by the customer,including interactions with the contact center, the retail store, andthe like.

FIG. 12 is a screen shot of a journey dashboard according to oneembodiment of the invention. The journey dashboard provides journey dataaggregated across multiple journeys of the same customer or differentcustomers. The dashboard provides data for identifying common journeys,common paths, and the like. The aggregated journey data may be providedto the hub server 100 for analysis and recommendation.

FIG. 13 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of the contactcenter system 120 a configured to interact with end user devices 400 a,400 b hosting the retail application according to one embodiment of theinvention. The contact center system 120 a of FIG. 13 may be similar tothe contact center system 120 of FIG. 3.

Each of the various servers, controllers, switches, gateways, engines,and/or modules (collectively referred to as servers) in theafore-described figures may be a process or thread, running on one ormore processors, in one or more computing devices 1500 (e.g., FIG. 14A,FIG. 14B), executing computer program instructions and interacting withother system components for performing the various functionalitiesdescribed herein. The computer program instructions are stored in amemory which may be implemented in a computing device using a standardmemory device, such as, for example, a random access memory (RAM). Thecomputer program instructions may also be stored in other non-transitorycomputer readable media such as, for example, a CD-ROM, flash drive, orthe like. Also, a person of skill in the art should recognize that acomputing device may be implemented via firmware (e.g. anapplication-specific integrated circuit), hardware, or a combination ofsoftware, firmware, and hardware. A person of skill in the art shouldalso recognize that the functionality of various computing devices maybe combined or integrated into a single computing device, or thefunctionality of a particular computing device may be distributed acrossone or more other computing devices without departing from the scope ofthe exemplary embodiments of the present invention. A server may be asoftware module, which may also simply be referred to as a module. Theset of modules in the contact center may include servers, and othermodules.

The various servers may be located on a computing device on-site at thesame physical location as the agents of the contact center or may belocated off-site (or in the cloud) in a geographically differentlocation, e.g., in a remote data center, connected to the contact centervia a network such as the Internet. In addition, some of the servers maybe located in a computing device on-site at the contact center whileothers may be located in a computing device off-site, or serversproviding redundant functionality may be provided both via on-site andoff-site computing devices to provide greater fault tolerance. In someembodiments of the present invention, functionality provided by serverslocated on computing devices off-site may be accessed and provided overa virtual private network (VPN) as if such servers were on-site, or thefunctionality may be provided using a software as a service (SaaS) toprovide functionality over the internet using various protocols, such asby exchanging data using encoded in extensible markup language (XML) orJavaScript Object notation (JSON).

FIG. 14A and FIG. 14B depict block diagrams of a computing device 1500as may be employed in exemplary embodiments of the present invention.Each computing device 1500 includes a central processing unit 1521 and amain memory unit 1522. As shown in FIG. 14A, the computing device 1500may also include a storage device 1528, a removable media interface1516, a network interface 1518, an input/output (I/O) controller 1523,one or more display devices 1530 c, a keyboard 1530 a and a pointingdevice 1530 b, such as a mouse. The storage device 1528 may include,without limitation, storage for an operating system and software. Asshown in FIG. 14B, each computing device 1500 may also includeadditional optional elements, such as a memory port 1503, a bridge 1570,one or more additional input/output devices 1530 d, 1530 e and a cachememory 1540 in communication with the central processing unit 1521. Theinput/output devices 1530 a, 1530 b, 1530 d, and 1530 e may collectivelybe referred to herein using reference numeral 1530.

The central processing unit 1521 is any logic circuitry that responds toand processes instructions fetched from the main memory unit 1522. Itmay be implemented, for example, in an integrated circuit, in the formof a microprocessor, microcontroller, or graphics processing unit (GPU),or in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or application-specificintegrated circuit (ASIC). The main memory unit 1522 may be one or morememory chips capable of storing data and allowing any storage locationto be directly accessed by the central processing unit 1521. As shown inFIG. 14A, the central processing unit 1521 communicates with the mainmemory 1522 via a system bus 1550. As shown in FIG. 14B, the centralprocessing unit 1521 may also communicate directly with the main memory1522 via a memory port 1503.

FIG. 14B depicts an embodiment in which the central processing unit 1521communicates directly with cache memory 1540 via a secondary bus,sometimes referred to as a backside bus. In other embodiments, thecentral processing unit 1521 communicates with the cache memory 1540using the system bus 1550. The cache memory 1540 typically has a fasterresponse time than main memory 1522. As shown in FIG. 14A, the centralprocessing unit 1521 communicates with various I/O devices 1530 via thelocal system bus 1550. Various buses may be used as the local system bus1550, including a Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) Localbus (VLB), an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, an ExtendedIndustry Standard Architecture (EISA) bus, a MicroChannel Architecture(MCA) bus, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, a PCI Extended(PCI-X) bus, a PCI-Express bus, or a NuBus. For embodiments in which anI/O device is a display device 1530 c, the central processing unit 1521may communicate with the display device 1530 c through an AdvancedGraphics Port (AGP). FIG. 14B depicts an embodiment of a computer 1500in which the central processing unit 1521 communicates directly with I/Odevice 1530 e. FIG. 14B also depicts an embodiment in which local bussesand direct communication are mixed: the central processing unit 1521communicates with I/O device 1530 d using a local system bus 1550 whilecommunicating with I/O device 1530 e directly.

A wide variety of I/O devices 1530 may be present in the computingdevice 1500.

Input devices include one or more keyboards 1530 a, mice, trackpads,trackballs, microphones, and drawing tablets. Output devices includevideo display devices 1530 c, speakers, and printers. An I/O controller1523, as shown in FIG. 14A, may control the I/O devices. The I/Ocontroller may control one or more I/O devices such as a keyboard 1530 aand a pointing device 1530 b, e.g., a mouse or optical pen.

Referring again to FIG. 14A, the computing device 1500 may support oneor more removable media interfaces 1516, such as a floppy disk drive, aCD-ROM drive, a DVD-ROM drive, tape drives of various formats, a USBport, a Secure Digital or COMPACT FLASH™ memory card port, or any otherdevice suitable for reading data from read-only media, or for readingdata from, or writing data to, read-write media. An I/O device 1530 maybe a bridge between the system bus 1550 and a removable media interface1516.

The removable media interface 1516 may for example be used forinstalling software and programs. The computing device 1500 may furthercomprise a storage device 1528, such as one or more hard disk drives orhard disk drive arrays, for storing an operating system and otherrelated software, and for storing application software programs.Optionally, a removable media interface 1516 may also be used as thestorage device. For example, the operating system and the software maybe run from a bootable medium, for example, a bootable CD.

In some embodiments, the computing device 1500 may comprise or beconnected to multiple display devices 1530 c, which each may be of thesame or different type and/or form. As such, any of the I/O devices 1530and/or the I/O controller 1523 may comprise any type and/or form ofsuitable hardware, software, or combination of hardware and software tosupport, enable or provide for the connection to, and use of, multipledisplay devices 1530 c by the computing device 1500. For example, thecomputing device 1500 may include any type and/or form of video adapter,video card, driver, and/or library to interface, communicate, connect orotherwise use the display devices 1530 c. In one embodiment, a videoadapter may comprise multiple connectors to interface to multipledisplay devices 1530 c. In other embodiments, the computing device 1500may include multiple video adapters, with each video adapter connectedto one or more of the display devices 1530 c. In some embodiments, anyportion of the operating system of the computing device 1500 may beconfigured for using multiple display devices 1530 c. In otherembodiments, one or more of the display devices 1530 c may be providedby one or more other computing devices, connected, for example, to thecomputing device 1500 via a network. These embodiments may include anytype of software designed and constructed to use the display device ofanother computing device as a second display device 1530 c for thecomputing device 1500. One of ordinary skill in the art will recognizeand appreciate the various ways and embodiments that a computing device1500 may be configured to have multiple display devices 1530 c.

A computing device 1500 of the sort depicted in FIG. 14A and FIG. 14Bmay operate under the control of an operating system, which controlsscheduling of tasks and access to system resources. The computing device1500 may be running any operating system, any embedded operating system,any real-time operating system, any open source operating system, anyproprietary operating system, any operating systems for mobile computingdevices, or any other operating system capable of running on thecomputing device and performing the operations described herein.

The computing device 1500 may be any workstation, desktop computer,laptop or notebook computer, server machine, handheld computer, mobiletelephone or other portable telecommunication device, media playingdevice, gaming system, mobile computing device, or any other type and/orform of computing, telecommunications or media device that is capable ofcommunication and that has sufficient processor power and memorycapacity to perform the operations described herein. In someembodiments, the computing device 1500 may have different processors,operating systems, and input devices consistent with the device.

In other embodiments the computing device 1500 is a mobile device, suchas a Java-enabled cellular telephone or personal digital assistant(PDA), a smart phone, a digital audio player, or a portable mediaplayer. In some embodiments, the computing device 1500 comprises acombination of devices, such as a mobile phone combined with a digitalaudio player or portable media player.

As shown in FIG. 14C, the central processing unit 1521 may comprisemultiple processors P1, P2, P3, P4, and may provide functionality forsimultaneous execution of instructions or for simultaneous execution ofone instruction on more than one piece of data. In some embodiments, thecomputing device 1500 may comprise a parallel processor with one or morecores. In one of these embodiments, the computing device 1500 is ashared memory parallel device, with multiple processors and/or multipleprocessor cores, accessing all available memory as a single globaladdress space. In another of these embodiments, the computing device1500 is a distributed memory parallel device with multiple processorseach accessing local memory only. In still another of these embodiments,the computing device 1500 has both some memory which is shared and somememory which may only be accessed by particular processors or subsets ofprocessors. In still even another of these embodiments, the centralprocessing unit 1521 comprises a multicore microprocessor, whichcombines two or more independent processors into a single package, e.g.,into a single integrated circuit (IC). In one exemplary embodiment,depicted in FIG. 14D, the computing device 1500 includes at least onecentral processing unit 1521 and at least one graphics processing unit1521′.

In some embodiments, a central processing unit 1521 provides singleinstruction, multiple data (SIMD) functionality, e.g., execution of asingle instruction simultaneously on multiple pieces of data. In otherembodiments, several processors in the central processing unit 1521 mayprovide functionality for execution of multiple instructionssimultaneously on multiple pieces of data (MIMD). In still otherembodiments, the central processing unit 1521 may use any combination ofSIMD and MIMD cores in a single device.

A computing device may be one of a plurality of machines connected by anetwork, or it may comprise a plurality of machines so connected. FIG.14E shows an exemplary network environment. The network environmentcomprises one or more local machines 1502 a, 1502 b (also generallyreferred to as local machine(s) 1502, client(s) 1502, client node(s)1502, client machine(s) 1502, client computer(s) 1502, client device(s)1502, endpoint(s) 1502, or endpoint node(s) 1502) in communication withone or more remote machines 1506 a, 1506 b, 1506 c (also generallyreferred to as server machine(s) 1506 or remote machine(s) 1506) via oneor more networks 1504. In some embodiments, a local machine 1502 has thecapacity to function as both a client node seeking access to resourcesprovided by a server machine and as a server machine providing access tohosted resources for other clients 1502 a, 1502 b. Although only twoclients 1502 and three server machines 1506 are illustrated in FIG. 14E,there may, in general, be an arbitrary number of each. The network 1504may be a local-area network (LAN), e.g., a private network such as acompany Intranet, a metropolitan area network (MAN), or a wide areanetwork (WAN), such as the Internet, or another public network, or acombination thereof.

The computing device 1500 may include a network interface 1518 tointerface to the network 1504 through a variety of connectionsincluding, but not limited to, standard telephone lines, local-areanetwork (LAN), or wide area network (WAN) links, broadband connections,wireless connections, or a combination of any or all of the above.Connections may be established using a variety of communicationprotocols. In one embodiment, the computing device 1500 communicateswith other computing devices 1500 via any type and/or form of gateway ortunneling protocol such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport LayerSecurity (TLS). The network interface 1518 may comprise a built-innetwork adapter, such as a network interface card, suitable forinterfacing the computing device 1500 to any type of network capable ofcommunication and performing the operations described herein. An I/Odevice 1530 may be a bridge between the system bus 1550 and an externalcommunication bus.

According to one embodiment, the network environment of FIG. 14E may bea virtual network environment where the various components of thenetwork are virtualized. For example, the various machines 1502 may bevirtual machines implemented as a software-based computer running on aphysical machine. The virtual machines may share the same operatingsystem. In other embodiments, different operating system may be run oneach virtual machine instance. According to one embodiment, a“hypervisor” type of virtualization is implemented where multiplevirtual machines run on the same host physical machine, each acting asif it has its own dedicated box. Of course, the virtual machines mayalso run on different host physical machines.

Other types of virtualization is also contemplated, such as, forexample, the network (e.g. via Software Defined Networking (SDN)).Functions, such as functions of the session border controller and othertypes of functions, may also be virtualized, such as, for example, viaNetwork Functions Virtualization (NFV).

It is the Applicant's intention to cover by claims all such uses of theinvention and those changes and modifications which could be made to theembodiments of the invention herein chosen for the purpose of disclosurewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Theparticular manner in which template details are presented to the usermay also differ. Thus, the present embodiments of the invention shouldbe considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, thescope of the invention to be indicated by claims and their equivalentsrather than the foregoing description.

1. An end-user device operable in a retail store comprising: amicrophone; a processor; and a memory, wherein the memory has storedtherein instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause theprocessor to: invoke the microphone for recording a voice conversationheld in the retail store; transmit the recording to a server over a datacommunications network, wherein the server is configured to receiverecordings of other conversations from a plurality of other retailstores, and perform real-time analysis of the recordings for comparingthe voice conversation in the retail store against other conversationsin the other retail stores; receive a recommendation from the serverbased on the comparing.
 2. The end-user device of claim 1, wherein thememory hosts an application invoked by a store representative in theparticular retail store for recording the voice conversation, whereinthe application is configured to display the recommendation from theserver.
 3. The end-user device of claim 1, wherein the voiceconversation is a coaching session between a store representative and astore manager, and the recommendation is a modified coaching script. 4.The end-user device of claim 1, wherein the conversation is between acustomer and a store representative, and the recommendation is for aparticular product or service.
 5. The end-user device of claim 1,wherein the server is configured to correlate the recording of the voiceconversation in the retail store, to an interaction with the customerand an agent of a contact center associated with the retail store. 6.The end-user device of claim 1, wherein the instructions further causethe processor to: receive information on a customer visiting the retailstore; capture interaction data occurring in the retail store; andtransmit the interaction data to the server along with the informationon the customer for storing in an interaction database in correlationwith other interactions of the customer, wherein the other interactionsare between the customer and an agent of a contact center associatedwith the retail store.
 7. A multi-tenant analytics system comprising: adata store; a processor coupled to the data store; and a memory, whereinthe memory stores therein instructions that, when executed by theprocessor, cause the processor to: collect from a plurality of sourcedevices over a data communication network, real-time metrics data for aplurality of virtual or physical retail stores associated with aplurality of contact centers; store the collected real-time metrics datain the data store; perform real-time analytics of the collected metricsdata for identifying a product or service; modify, based on thereal-time analytics, a prior service or product to be offered by aparticular retail store of the physical retail stores, with theidentified service or product; and push the modified service or productfor display on an electronic device at the particular retail store. 8.The system of claim 7, wherein the electronic device is configured tohost an application invoked by a store representative in the particularretail store.
 9. The system of claim 7, wherein the real-time metricsdata includes at least one of interactions at the retail stores,customer satisfaction data, sales data, or retail store workforce data.10. The system of claim 9, wherein the real-time metrics data includesinformation on sales of products or services by the plurality of virtualor physical retail stores.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein theproducts or services include upsell and cross-sell products or services.12. The system of claim 7, wherein the instructions further cause theprocessor to: dynamically generate benchmark data based on the collectedreal-time metrics data; determine, for the particular retail store,performance of the retail store based on the benchmark data; and outputa recommendation based on the comparison.
 13. The system of claim 12,wherein the recommendation relates to staff for handling customers bythe particular retail store.
 14. The system of claim 12, wherein therecommendation relates to products or services to be offered by theparticular contact center.
 15. The system of claim 7, wherein thereal-time metrics data includes interaction data collected frominteractions between a customer and a website associated with theparticular retail store.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein thecollected interaction data is anonymous and stored withoutidentification of the customer.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein theparticular customer is identified in response to the customer visiting aphysical store associated with the particular website, wherein anapparatus at the physical store is configured to transmit one or moreidentifiers for identifying the customer, the instructions furthercausing the processor to: receive the one or more identifierstransmitted by the apparatus; and associate the stored interaction datato the customer based on the one or more identifiers.
 18. The system ofclaim 17, wherein interaction with the customer in the physical store ismodified based on the associating of the interaction data to thecustomer.
 19. The system of claim 17, wherein the apparatus at thephysical store is coupled to a scanner configured to scan the one ormore identifiers from material provided by the customer.